Brothers
by XeroKitty
Summary: A Sasukecentered fic. Itachi summons his little brother for the faceoff he's been waiting for his entire life, but Orochimaru isn't going to let his precious body go that easily...
1. The Dream

**_Brothers_**

A Sasuke-centered fic. Please, Sasuke-haters, give it a chance before you turn away in disgust. I know he's an emo bastard, but he has a _right_ to be. I'll try not to have him whine in here, and also try to keep him true to his character. Good luck to me.

The title has a double-meaning: blood brothers and brothers in arms. So, in essence, this is an Itachi-angst, Naruto-friendship fic. Me, SasuNaru friendship? Whoa.

**Warning: **Possible character death. I don't know; I don't plan these things. And for those of you who read into things, there could be SasuNaru shonenai, though it's not intended. And there will be angst in here. ANGST. Maybe a smidge of emoness, but not if it can't be helped.

**Disclaimer: **The series Naruto and all of its characters do not belong to me. If it did, I'd stop making such ridiculous filler and catch up to the manga already.

**Notes: **I should never stay up till six a.m. when I have a ten o'clock class the next morning. NEVER. It does things like this.

-

It was a wasteland. An empty husk of what used to be a forest, given away by the skeletons of trees hanging near the edges of his vision. Uchiha Sasuke walked calmly, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his khaki shorts as he took in his surroundings and searched for some sign or faint hint of chakra to tell him he wasn't alone. Though he could sense nothing, Sasuke noted the uneasy feeling tight in his chest--he had survived all of his life by paying attention to that feeling, and he wasn't about to dismiss it just because he _thought_ there was nothing around. Before him, the dark outline of a large dead tree loomed into his vision and the tightness burrowed deeper, to the pit of his stomach. Sasuke briefly felt nauseous.

_It's a _tree_, Uchiha. A fucking _tree_. What's it going to do? Eat you?_

It would have made him feel better if the damn thing didn't _look_ like it could do just that. Its branches reached out to him like hunger-driven fingers and there was a hole in the center of the withered trunk that gaped like a wide mouth, sitting in wait for anyone fool enough to wander too close and get snatched up by those clawed branches and pulled into the dark maw. He shook his head sharply, scolding himself: _You total moron! A tree, god dammit, a TREE! What are you, two years old?_ Well, the thing made him _feel_ like he was just two years old, that was for sure. In fact, a small and childish part of him wouldn't be at all surprised if a nasty, slime-covered monster suddenly crawled out from the heart of the tree's depths… He scowled and stomped his feet deliberately to scare away those stupid thoughts as he marched over the root-infested dirt and stood at the dead tree's base, trying his hardest to glare at it in distaste and merely pulling off mild apprehension. _Tch._ He had been scared of _this_ useless piece of bark? Not Uchiha Sasuke, thank you very much.

A sharp noise startled him from his self-berating and Sasuke peered up into the tangle of bare branches to see what had made that appalling cry. _Some kind of bird?_ A raven to be exact: huge and silk black, its feathers gleaming slickly against the heavy mud-gray sky that served as background for this surreal place. The bird's beady red eyes pinned him to the spot; he couldn't shake the sudden feeling of being watched. _But you ARE being watched. _Somewhere else, _some_one else was watching him--he was sure of it--he just couldn't get his own eyes off the damned raven. And suddenly, in a flurry of wings and another grating cry, the huge black bird took off to the sky, the sound of its beating wings reverberating in the air around him and knocking him out of his paranoia. Sasuke tried to compose himself; the unsettling feeling in his chest had faded.

"What was _that_ about?" he spoke aloud, his voice coming out small and broken in the vast empty space around him. It made him feel suddenly helpless and Sasuke whirled on his heel, intending to get the hell out of here before that bad feeling came back. If he was this damn jumpy over a _bird_, he could scarcely imagine if a _person_ had walked out of that tree or something…

"I've been waiting for you, little brother."

All the years of loneliness and pain and silent, unanswered prayers suddenly came and swept away Sasuke's sanity in a rush of heated anger that rose from the pit of his stomach. It extended outward like a fire, licking hungrily at his insides and heating his skin as his wide eyes shifted from their deep black amber hue to the violent blood-red of the Sharingan. Orochimaru's power seal activated to his body's internal alarms and the heat within him intensified as the black markings snaked their way across his pale, slightly-sweating flesh. He had reacted to the spoken words faster than his brain itself had, and Sasuke's mind struggled--especially the slow, rational part that was screaming that this could just NOT be happening--to catch up with the rest of him. _How! It can't be--! No. No it isn't. If I turn around, he'll be gone; if I turn around, I'll…wake up or something. Yes! I'll wake up! This bizarreness can _only_ be a nightmare…_

Slowly, Sasuke turned himself around to come face to face with his long-missing older brother, Uchiha Itachi. The only other survivor of the massacre that happened too long ago to count the years was standing in front of that gaping tree-mouth, his black and red Akatsuki robes hammering Sasuke's vision almost like a spoken insult. His left arm was still cocked at the elbow and settled out of the robe's sleeve, supported by the cloth belt tied about his waist, his hand dangling out lazily. And suddenly, it wasn't as stupid as it was insulting: he was _insulting_ him. _'You're not even worth the effort of using both arms.'_ This thought fueled the rage that was welling up in him, making him choke on the bitter thoughts of sacrifice and pain and the _years my god, the _YEARSHe couldn't count them even if he wanted to; he was going blind with the sheer thought of it: _He killed them. He killed them all, and left only me, for all those years. Years of training and perfecting and dreaming of the moment when I could bring justice to my fallen kin. HE KILLED THEM!_

"ITACHI!" Sasuke screamed, _shrieked_, and lunged at his brother. The figure of the older Uchiha melted abruptly and Sasuke couldn't stop in time; he crashed face-first into the dark hole in the dead tree's trunk. Growling and sputtering, blinking almost stupidly in confusion, Sasuke turned to look for Itachi. The empty, bleak landscape met his searching eyes and he quickly understood--Itachi had tricked him again. Throwing back his head, Sasuke let out a cry that was just barely human. It was a combination of his rage, his sorrow, and his unwillingness to let the latest insult just idly go by: _'You're not even worth killing… I don't have time for you…Get out of my way…annoying.'_

The last thought jarred him from his one-track hatred and the abruptness of the thought pattern extinguished the black curse markings as well as the power-draining Sharingan. Sasuke shook his head to clear it as he rose to his feet properly: "Did I…really sound like…that?" His thoughts had somehow stumbled onto Uzumaki Naruto, of all people. How he had insulted the other boy when they were younger: _'Get out of my way…annoying.'_ Had he really sounded that _cold_ to him? So cold and uncaring? And for the first time in a very, very long time, Sasuke suddenly longed to be home again.

-

That's when he awoke, lying tangled in the sweat-soaked sheets, pieces of the white linen torn to shreds and clenched in his hands. Slowly, Uchiha Sasuke sat up, unraveling his fingers from the cloth and running them shakily through his unruly black spikes. _It was a dream after all…_ And he was grimly content with the realization until his blurry eyes caught a small dark shape lying atop his windowsill. A feather. A black raven feather.

'_I've been waiting for you, little brother.'_

Shit.


	2. Hidden Smile

He stopped and adjusted the black tunic shirt that clung almost uncomfortably tight against his frame. Then he fiddled with the black straps that banded along his forearms up to the joint of his elbows. He was stalling now, and he knew it, but that didn't stop him from crouching down to tighten the black soft-soled shoes one at a time, slowly, spreading his awareness around as he continued to kneel for another moment at the edge of the forest. The beautiful evergreen trees gave out abruptly six yards ahead, into--of all things--an empty wasteland. It looked as if a fire had ravaged the area and robbed the soil of its richness, prohibiting growth for as far as one's eyes could perceive. _Like a landscape from a nightmare. _Sasuke shuddered. He wasn't sure how long it had been since Itachi's summons had drawn him out of his hiding place, and he also wasn't sure how far behind him Orochimaru was, but he _did_ know that he was tired and he'd give pretty much anything to be able to lie back against the trunk of the tree he was partially-hidden beneath and take a rest. Although, that might not be the best idea. _Yeah, nice one, Sasuke. Itachi could be just beyond that next damn tree and Orochimaru could be coming up right behind you to knock you out and drag you back to the laboratory, but _you want a nap_. Well, isn't that just peachy? _He would have smirked humorlessly if he weren't so damn _tired._ Four days now, it was--traveling from late afternoon to late morning, only taking those few precious hours in between to have a restless, half-paranoid resemblance of something similar to sleep. Add that to the not-eating deal, and wasn't he just fit to trip? Regardless of telling himself these things, the young Uchiha found the ground that had suddenly appeared beneath his rear end quite comfortable. Even the bark of the tree he was leaning against seemed much softer than it had looked just seconds ago. And then (wasn't this always the case in the end?) his eyelids were just too heavy to keep propped open. They closed over his bloodshot eyes that looked more dead than the field just a few yards away and he heard himself thinking: _Just a five minute break. A tiny little rest stop. You're only human, Uchiha, you can't just run into battle with Itachi and collapse in the first five minutes from sleep-deprivation, right? Just five minutes…_

But since when had Sasuke ever listened to a damn word anyone had to say?

* * *

_The wind feels nice._

He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes; the sun was just too warm, too _good_, and the grass was as soft as any bed. He could _feel_ the beautiful green hue of it soaking into his clothing, into his body, cradling him and lulling him into this insanely peaceful state of serenity. Sasuke couldn't remember a time when he had felt like this, and he thought idly to himself that he wouldn't mind visiting this state of existence more often. The thought was joined by the trill of a whistle. It didn't bother or upset him, but it did make him crack one almond-shaped eye open in a half-assed attempt to locate the source of the good-natured sound. He saw that he was on the gentle slope of a hill that rolled downward to the bank of a wide blue lake, and with a realization that for once was not annoyed or angered, he pinned the offbeat melody to someone coming up the hill from the lake toward him. He closed his eye again; he couldn't be bothered to identify the person approaching, he was too content and relaxed to care about _anything_ right now.

Laughter made him quirk one eyebrow as a shadow fell over him, cool and smooth like a silken blanket. He willed his eyes to come open and all he could see was someone standing over him, back-lit by the sun and impossible to see, but there was a hand extended to him. He looked at it, his eyes slightly crossing due to its proximity to his face.

More laughing: "Come on, you dork, get up."

His heart thudded suddenly at the realization of who this silhouetted person actually was. He took the offered hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. He absent-mindedly brushed blades of loose grass from his light khaki shorts and looked into the smiling face of his long-lost best friend.

"You look pale, man," Uzumaki Naruto's eyes momentarily clouded with concern for his darker teammate. "Well, paler than normal."

Sasuke made a face at the other boy. "Watch it."

"You okay though?" his concern won over his self-preservation, and his guard slipped like his smile. Sasuke had to turn his eyes away momentarily: _Don't stop smiling because of me… I hate it when you do that…_

"I'm fine," he said aloud and slipped his hands into his pockets, looking down to the lake that mirrored the sky. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Hn. I don't know," Naruto tucked his hands behind his head and stared thoughtfully out into space. "Pretty cool-looking, huh? The bank of the lake gets really muddy though."

"What were you whistling just now?" Sasuke looked over at him.

He looked back. "Oh, I don't know. Some song someone taught me a while ago. Why?" In response, the boy in the orange jacket only received a slight headshake. The two of them stood there on the hill as the sun gradually sank a little lower in the sky and the faint purple hues that tied the sunset and the night together began appearing above their heads. The red-orange sphere hanging low over the horizon bathed them both in fire colors. When Sasuke thought this, he remembered his dream with Itachi.

"I dreamt about my brother the other night," he said.

Naruto looked at him, concerned again: "The guy who…?"

"Yeah."

"…well, what was the dream about?"

"A dark place," Sasuke dropped his gaze to the ground which was suddenly very interesting, "where nothing grew and no one lived. And my brother appeared in front of me and said he'd been waiting for me."

"Sounds creepy."

"I should go find him."

"You could stay a couple of more minutes, you know."

Sasuke finally brought his eyes back up to those sharp blue orbs, that he swore could read minds sometimes. Or maybe it was just that Naruto could read people, in ways no one ever thought he could. There were a lot of things Naruto could do that people didn't believe he'd be smart or talented enough to. Sasuke had learned that first-hand.

"I don't think I have the time to stay," he said carefully, watching for the flash of anger or impatience in his friend's eyes. Instead of that, he got a slight wave of a hand and a full-toothed grin.

"Time wasted doing something that makes you happy isn't wasted time," he spoke casually, but Sasuke believed he meant more to what he said. It was rare that Naruto came up with something so thought-provoking. He let himself smile ever-so slightly.

"_Dobe._"

Naruto made a face at him. "Oh, shut up, Sasuke."

* * *

The nap had worked wonders, if not to cause a little disorientation. Shaking his head to clear it and bring his thoughts back to the present, Uchiha Sasuke looked up at the sky to clock the time. The purple streaks had bled outward and almost overtaken the pinkish-orange sky (at least that was what he could make out from the patches between branches). The orange ball of setting fire was to his left instead of in front of him--what lay in front was that dead-looking clearing, he now recalled. And, most likely, his brother.

That tight, constricted feeling in his chest returned full-force and nearly overwhelmed him. _Stop stalling! _one part of his brain screamed at him. _Just go over there, hand Itachi his ass on a silver platter--hell, a _gold_ one, who cares?--and go back!_

_Go back to where? _another voice in his head whispered, and somehow, that was far more unsettling than the screaming. _To Orochimaru? Psh. You didn't even need to go there in the first place--_

_Or are you even _ready_ to face Itachi? _a third part said just as softly, but twice as gut-wrenching, if that were at all possible. _What if you needed a few more years of training? Itachi has at _least_ eighteen years on you, didn't you ever think about that? _

_Just GO and kick his ASS already!_ voice number one returned. _You've been waiting for this moment your whole _life_! And you're no more than thirty feet away from him! Come ON!_

_You can't do this on your own, Uchiha. You could never do anything on your own before… You should have brought your friends with you--_

_You didn't _have _anyone to bring, remember? Just an immature little girl who made googly-eyes at you, and…and…_

"Naruto," he spoke aloud and then blinked in surprise when all the voices abruptly silenced. So, that was the answer then: _What will you go back to? _Naruto. _Who could you have taken with you? _Naruto. And Sasuke did one of those rare things he did only whenever the blond was concerned: one corner of his mouth lifted into a small grin. And with that, not knowing he was walking toward certain death with a smile on his face, Uchiha Sasuke strode toward the clearing ahead.


	3. His Destiny

3

His footsteps were harsh and echoed gratingly against the low charcoal-gray sky. The sunset's rays couldn't penetrate this darkness; this was made, created, _intentional._ Someone _wanted_ him to be disoriented and lost, cold and unsure. Sasuke was positive this was the work of his older brother.

He stopped, clenching his fists as his eyes converted to their limit-state. "Itachi! I know you're here!" Silence was the only response to his voice, which sounded so fragile in the accumulating darkness. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and shouted a bit louder: "You've been waiting for me, right? So then where are you? Come out and face me!"

He spread his awareness as he waited for some sort of response, searching for traces of chakra or remains of jitsus; anything that would tell him if Itachi was nearby. It was unnerving, standing there waiting for something to happen. He felt so vulnerable, so _open_. And he was. Even the arguing voices in the back of his mind had quieted as the unsettling silence pressed down on him, making him choke on his own rising panic.

_No,_ he willed himself to calm down, slowly inhaling and holding his breath momentarily before releasing it. _Just no, Uchiha. You've got to be calm, alert. You can't be jumping at every little sound. Focus, focus…_ He closed his eyelids over the three-pointed spiral seals that now dotted red orbs. _Focus…_ He took another deep breath, held it, released it again. Inhale, pause, exhale. Inhale, pause--

He jumped out of the way. The kunai with the explosive tag tied to its end flickered momentarily in his mind's eye before exploding in a flurry of smoke and fire. Sasuke looked about him quickly, searching for any sign of the attacker. Six hazy figures met his Sharingan eyes: they were all wearing black and white uniforms, white animal masks with red markings on them, long swords at their hips, and were dead. The last fact took an extra moment to register. _They have no internal chakra. _The bodies were enfolded in a horrible dark maroon and blue-outlined chakra field that was manipulating them, making them draw those swords out from the scabbards at their hips. He took a fighting stance, his Sharingan confirming there were indeed six dead Anbu encircling him. One of them had another explosive tag tied to a kunai gripped in his free hand; he lifted an arm to fling it in Sasuke's direction.

And exactly seven seconds later, Sasuke was straightening from his fighting stance, giving the customized long-blade kunai a slight shake to rid its polished surface of the slightly-tacky goop that coated its surface. The bodies of the deceased fell around him soundlessly, the muffled thumps getting lost in the consuming air around him. And without turning around, he felt the seventh presence materialize into existence behind him. The fucker had been concealing themselves this entire time, watching Sasuke, waiting for his move. And now, they had seen him in action--they knew what they were up against. It had been a simple test to see how much he had improved. _To see if I had finally become worth fighting. _Slowly, Sasuke turned his face to another tired-looking, deeply-lined one.

"I've been waiting for you, little brother," the monotone voice gave off no hint of emotion…just as he had remembered it.

"And now I'm here," Sasuke responded flatly, turning fully as he chucked the kunai somewhere off to his left where he heard it _thunk_ into the bark of a tree. "And I'm finally going to kill you."

There was a slight pause as those dark eyes the color of blood spilled upon a dark wood floor looked him up and down. Then: "We shall see."

Sasuke lunged at him with every hard-coiled emotion that had been winding up in his chest. The anxiety spilled into his every limb, electrifying his nerves as he swung fists that were clenched so tight that any connection to Itachi's face or otherwise would likely break his own knuckles. He was dimly aware of hearing himself scream, but he wasn't quite sure anymore. Sasuke was falling backwards instead of plunging forward; falling deep into those dark eyes that laughed at him silently. They turned him back into a small, wild eight year old who was charging across the blood-stained floor of the main room, ignoring the two motionless heaps that had been his parents at the feet of his last-living blood relative. There was blood everywhere, the floor, the katana, his hands, his memories, blood, blood, _blood!_

"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!" he plowed his fists into the soft curve of Itachi's stomach and only had a second to realize that he had been tricked _again_--the bunshin exploded, sending Sasuke flying backwards. He hit the hard-packed dirt some thirty-odd feet away and gasped as he felt his back scream in protest of the rough landing. Being conditioned enough to know that if he didn't recover it could mean disaster, he used his momentum to roll around several times and wound up on his hands and knees. He coughed once sharply, a barking, hacking sound that echoed in the empty field. And then: _Where is he? Where are you? I know you're here, Itachi. GodDAMMIT where the fuck did you go?_

"Get up." The cold voice filled all his senses and left room for nothing else, making him feel numb. He lifted his body gradually, keeping himself hunched over to avoid the glare he felt being drilled into his skull. "Is that all there is, Sasuke? Is that all you have to show me for all the work you've supposedly done these past years?"

"…you…" He felt his anger burning there in his center. He actually _felt_ it swirling around in the pit of his gut, numbing the pain from his failed attack, from his memories of his brother's words, from his own self-loathing. _Later. You can hate yourself later. For now…_ He rolled his spine upward, flexing the muscles and tendons, stretching them out. His eyes met his the taller Uchiha's, mirroring the Sharingan glare in a way that would possibly make Orochimaru himself shudder. And speaking of, that snake-bastard could be trouble of Sasuke didn't finish this quickly.

"There will be no interruptions from this point onward," Itachi lifted his hand to his black collar and undid the clasps, letting the top half of his robes fall open to reveal the navy and black mesh that clung to his muscular chest. "I'll give you what you've always wanted, as long as you promise not to be a disappointment to me, little brother." Sasuke stared back, un-phased. He moved into his fighting stance fluidly, never breaking eye contact with the other man: crouched, arms lifted slightly and bent at the elbows.

"You won't be disappointed, brother," he growled softly in the back of his throat. His fight, his _destiny_, was finally here.


	4. To the Rescue

**Notes: **So, I've had the worst case of writer's block for some time now. With school and work and graduation and engagement (yay!) all happening at the same time, I was a little overwhelmed. Just recently, I've gotten back into my Itachi-kick, and I instantly remembered this unfinished story. It isn't very well-read or reviewed, but I appreciate those of you who do read and comment, and if you're reading this message, thanks for waiting so long.

* * *

4

He stopped, placing his hand against the trunk of the tree beside him and licking his lips nervously as his eyes scanned the surrounding forest. It was too thick, too vast, like it was trying to hide something. And it was doing a damn good job of it too. Uzumaki Naruto closed his eyes and tried to single out the charka of a man who had been lost to time and circumstance. It was particularly strong in this area (Naruto would have been surprised to learn that his friend had napped under this very tree just a few hours ago), but the traces were fading quickly now, even as he concentrated. He had to find the right way to go, and fast.

"C'mon Sasuke, where'd you run off to?" his brow furrowed in concentration as he searched for the faint blue tinges of Uchiha Sasuke's unmistakable chakra. A thin line of it wove deeper into the woods beneath the canopy of trees where—Naruto couldn't help but notice—there was a distinct lapse in the greenery some thirty or forty feet to his left. _Is he there? _Whatever was over there, it wasn't pleasant, that was for sure. He could feel the disturbing aura of that place radiating outward, tickling his exposed skin with something sour and ugly. It made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end. _Fear_, he could tell that one immediately, _and anger. Lot's of anger. Hatred, too. _Just what was going on over there?

"It doesn't involve me," he scolded himself, forcing his brain back toward its original intent: finding Sauske. Suddenly, a scream rang out in the early night and Naruto's head whipped back around to look at the dark clearing. There was a glimmer of harsh red from somewhere near the center—it sent a huge, shuddering chill down his back as a faint, slightly-familiar voice rang distantly in his head:

_For the next forty-eight hours, you will relive all of the most painful moments from your life._

The scream rang out again, louder, harsher, filled with overwhelming anguish. Naruto's gut twisted painfully. He recognized the scream.

"Sasuke!" he lunged forward, not quite sure what he could do or where he could go to help. Everything fell into place as he dropped to the forest floor and began to run: the memory of that confrontation between Sasuke and his older brother Itachi, and Naruto's painful and unintentional involvement between the two. Gulping in huge lungfulls of air as he bounded toward the clearing, Naruto concentrated as hard as he could on his own thoughts, sending them toward his friend.

_Sasuke, I'm coming! God, please be okay…_

He willed his feet to fly, trying to race the speed of sound as the angst-filled scream faded from the evening air. He was most definitely angled at that barren clearing he had seen while scanning the forest. So intent on finally reaching his friend, Naruto didn't register the dark tendril lash out to trip him. As he tumbled, his brain automatically associated his fall with an unearthed tree root he had somehow hooked his foot into. But the deeper, more-paranoid part of his brain screamed the worst-case scenario: _Trap!_ He instinctively tucked his shoulder in and used the momentum of his fall to roll smoothly, stopping in a crouch amidst the trees. His wide blue eyes darted around the area, trying to catch the attack before it happened. Nothing came. Letting out a nervous breath, Naruto tried to stand and continue, but something tugged at his legs and hips, keeping him anchored to the ground. Cold terror swept through his insides as he looked down and saw more of the black tendrils coiled securely around his lower body. Hesitating only for an instant, the blond ninja slipped a long-bladed kunai from a pouch on his dark green vest and began slicing into the binds. An angry hiss almost made him drop the weapon and he watched in stunned silence as a triangular head rose from the tangle and came to eye level, a slender tongue darting out to taste the air between it and his face.

_Snakes!_

Every hair on his body stood on end as he suddenly registered the hidden presence he had failed to notice earlier. His self-enduced filter for Sasuke's chakra had made him blind to the other dangers that could have been present. Like this one.

"Naruto-_kun_, what a pleasant surprise. I take it you're also looking for Sasuke?"

The sudden rage that flared up inside him was answered by the deep, rumbling growl of the demon locked away within. The _Kyuubi Kitsune_ came alive like a fire in his lower belly, anxious to come out, eager for the sworn promise of spilled blood. His blue eyes flickering, Naruto raised his head and met the cold, dark stare of one of the three legendary ninja.

"Why so quiet?" Orochimaru hissed, the grin on his face widening as Naruto's chakra flared dangerously. "Aren't you as eager to see Sauske as I am?"

"You…" Naruto could feel his control slipping and his mind grasped for it urgently. Losing his cool here could spell disaster. "What do you have left to take from Sasuke? You stole everything from him!"

"'Stole' is such a nasty word, isn't it?" the pale-faced man cooed, his hand moving coolly to a katana hilt he had tucked into his belt. "And no, I have not had my fill of Sasuke yet."

The chuckle sent chills rolling down Naruto's spine: "You sick bastard."

The blade hissed as it came from its sheath. "That's not nice, my little fox-child." Orochimaru let the blade capture the last light of the dying day as the world finally surrendered to darkness. "Shall I have to teach you some manners before I…_lecture_ Sasuke on his?"

"You're not going to lay a finger on Sasuke ever again!" Naruto exploded and the _Kyuubi_ roared almost gleefully as it lunged into his consciousness, taking over his body and mind. The last coherent thing Naruto thought as the snakes binding his body squealed and died and fell away as his—the nine-tailed demon fox's—chakra burned outward and licked eagerly at his flesh was that his friend somehow survived until he could get there, sane or not.


	5. Dreamstate

5 

Uchiha Sasuke was floating somewhere between wakefulness and surrender, an unknown cold seeping into his muscles and bones as he lay on the hard ground and listened to his own screams. They sounded so distant and detached that it was hard to tell if they were really his or not. Besides the slight dizzying feeling he was experiencing right now, this really wasn't so bad, he thought as he continued drifting. Although…there was this annoying nagging at the back of his mind, telling him he had been doing something important. But did it really matter? It didn't hurt here. Nothing hurt here. He was safe.  
_What the hell are you doing!_ The loud and annoying part of himself screamed out. _Get up!  
And why should you?_ The even-tempered, rational voice countered smoothly. _What else can you do, anyway? It was a mistake to try and do this.  
Not that it matters, the third voice interjected, cool and calculating in his mind. It was over before it began, you know.  
That's no excuse!_ Loud and Annoying started up again. _You've gotta fight it, you pansy! FIGHT IT!  
_…Fight what?  
_Do you see now?_ Calm and Rational spoke quietly. _You weren't ready. You should have gone back, waited, trained some more—  
Do you even know what's going on?_ Cold and Calculating interrupted somewhat impatiently. _Is it so bad that you even forgot about it? You're weaker than you initially thought.  
_Sasuke gave a mental shake of his head to sort out the voices that had somehow developed personalities of their own. Forget what? There was a dull ache from far off somewhere, like a wound that was trying to heal itself. His unease and disorientation grew as he roused himself slightly from this half-way world only to be met by a solid wall of resistance. Something was trying to keep him in here. His apprehension growing, Sasuke tried once again to surface from his dreamstate only to come in contact with that wall, this time threaded with shocking jolts of pain. He sat back and pondered.  
_Don't give into him!_ Loud and Annoying screeched. _Fight back! Ignore the pain! You're stronger than this!  
You're going to end up dying if you keep arguing with yourself like this._ Calm and Rational agreed in its own roundabout way. _Wake up. Snap out of it. You don't want to die yet, do you?  
_No, He didn't want to die.  
_If you can't even bring yourself to look the truth in the eye, you shouldn't be allowed to live anyway._ Cold and Calculating sneered. _Being Orochimaru's bitch was a more-fitting end for someone like you.  
_And then all the voices silenced as a powerful fire swelled to life somewhere over on his left side. It penetrated the wall and made the muffled noises come back to full volume, and as the fire burned into his senses he heard his own screams—definitely his own—painful and pathetic, echoing and slowly tapering off into whimpers as something, someone, stood near him and watched with a mixture of contempt and disgust. Sasuke recoiled from the fire and the pain radiating out of that broken wall and gave another mental headshake as it beckoned him into the waking world in silent tongues. The hole was starting to close, and his awareness was narrowing again, but another scream slipped in, and this time, it did not belong to him. However, it still rang in his memory, even though it was laced with something mad and inhuman.  
_Naruto!  
_Something foreign and somehow distantly familiar welled up inside him as he realized that the blond had actually followed him all the way out here. He had come to help Sasuke fight—  
_…ITACHI!

* * *

_

The short-bladed katana rung sharply against the lip of its sheath as Uchiha Itachi drew the weapon and poised it over his younger brother's sprawled body. The younger man was still, save for the struggling rise and fall of his trembling body as he breathed unsteadily. Itachi marveled slightly at how Sasuke had managed to slip inside his own consciousness to avoid the devastating effects of the Mangekyou Sharingan. However, he seemed to only understand the technique halfway, thus leaving him wide open for a finishing blow. If only for the briefest of moments, Itachi hesitated as the last of his family line lay pitiful before him. Then he steeled himself against the weakness, and plunged the blade down.

* * *

Instincts took over even as Sasuke came back to his bruised and beaten consciousness. He heaved himself to the right, the dagger struck the dirt with a hollow clank, and Sasuke propped himself up on one knee, his hand coming down to brace the weight on that side. He only had half a moment to steady his frayed nerves before Itachi recovered from the successful evasion and lashed his foot out, striking his younger brother in the chest. Sasuke fell back, skidding against the ground and grunting as something pulled in his upper arm. Eventually he stopped tumbling and his eyes rose to watch Itachi sheathe his blade. The bleary haze over his vision made the motion almost surreal. Slowly, he began to pull himself to his feet and mentally assess the damage: headache, muscle fatigue, burning eyes, a pulled—maybe dislocated—shoulder, and a whipped ego. Down but not out.  
Itachi only watched in silence as Sasuke came to his feet and retook his fighting stance. Off to one side of the abandoned clearing, a bloodthirsty chakra seeped through the trees and rolled over their battle. It made Sasuke tremble and forced him to keep his rage in check. Itachi merely shrugged it off.  
"Well, little brother? Shall we continue before someone decides to interrupt us?" 


End file.
